Surely marriage is a spiritual union, but that doesn't necessarily preclude nonspiritual couples from getting married. There is no quiz. Well, unless you are catholic. My reasons for wanting to be married to my husband really have little to do with church or God. His have absolutely nothing to do with church or God. Yet, we aren't forbidden from marrying.
Churches and clergy should absolutely be able to choose who they will and will not marry. I am more than fine with this, being the big supporter of the separation of church and state that I am. I know, perhaps the founding fathers were on to something!
Opponents would say that our founding fathers never imagined a world where same sex marriage would be an issue. You know what, I am pretty sure they never imagined a world where people of different races would want to marry. That is the beauty of our Constitution. It is flexible, adaptable, a living document.
40 years ago in Virginia I would not have been allowed to marry my husband. 40 years ago. Think about that. 40 years ago in Virginia the police broke into the house of an interracial couple to try to catch them in the act so that they could be arrested. Loving v. Virginia. Look it up. It took the United States Supreme Court to put an end to what we now look back on as unbelievable, hideous discrimination.
Caroline County Sheriff R. Garnett Brooks rousted them from their bed at 2 a.m. in July 1958 and told them the District's marriage certificate was no good in Virginia. They pleaded guilty, and Caroline County Circuit Court Judge Leon M. Bazile sentenced them to a year's imprisonment, to be suspended if they left the state for the next 25 years.
"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix," Bazile ruled.
Seriously! Less than a generation ago people truly believed this was acceptable thinking. Judges for goodness sake. It is my hope that it won't take another 40 years to put an end to the same type of discrimination against same sex couples. No one is asking for special rights, only equal rights. That, my friends, is guaranteed by our Constitution.
If you want to protect the sanctity of marriage then you should seriously be also talking about making divorce illegal, or at a minimum MUCH more difficult to obtain. The hypocrisy of our lawmakers, many of whom are on marriage #2 or #3, who in one breath say the marriage must be protected but in their own real lives (which will never be impacted by this denial of rights) live in a way that is inconsistent with their edicts, blows my mind. If you are going to deny rights to some, while allowing it for others, you better have a DAMNNNNNED good reason for it and so far I have yet to hear one argument that doesn't sound like it came out of a pastor's mouth. That's just not good enough for me. I am not talking about a church being forced to condone something that is completely opposite of the belief system. I am talking about a government denying a fundamental and basic right to a subset of the population. I need a better reason than God and the bible say its wrong ... because God and the bible say a lot of things are wrong that we do everyday. No more cherry picking!
2 comments:
Very well put. I could not agree with you more. The concept of denying same sex marriage makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Marcia
That's why things like Mike Huckabee on the Daily Show saying that the purpose of marriage is for procreation make me so mad--they're not arresting couples who are infertile, or (god forbid) have decided NOT to have children. I've got a relative who just announced his engagement to wife number 4, I think it is--if anybody should not have their marriage sanctioned by government, it should be him! On the other hand, I've got a cousin whose partner can't be recognized and get benefits of being a spouse--he can't even pick up the kids from school because he's not recognized as a legal guardian. It does remind me a lot of interracial marriage and how until fairly "recently" in our history that was taboo. Scary!
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